Municipality blow to the tourist village of Ormana

Ormana , a tourist village in Ibradı , the hometown of Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy , is facing extinction. Complex zoning plans and municipal incompetence have led to the closure and demolition of Ormana 's restaurant, and Ormana Active has been removed from the village's tour program because it can't serve the tourist agencies that bring it to the area.

Making a press statement in Ormana, the Association of Travel Agencies Managers (SAYD) stated that Ormana Village has been brought to the point of destruction by the Ministry of Tourism and the municipality.

The following statements were made in the statement:

"We, as tourism travel agencies, have lost a tourism enterprise that played a key role in promoting the historical Ormana village, which is a part of our culture with its button houses located on the Silk Road route.

As of the end of 2024, Ormana Active Tourism has provided services to nearly 50 thousand of the 250 thousand local and foreign tourists who came to the region daily or for accommodation.

Our colleague, the owner of Ormana Active Tourism, has worked tirelessly for 15 years, day and night, to transform an unknown village into a tourism destination by participating in national and international fairs.

While Ormana Active brings foreign tourists from 32 countries to the region, it also contributes greatly to the promotion of the region by providing products to hundreds of agencies in the country, providing economic benefits to thousands of people directly and indirectly.

We are here today because the incompetent local government, citing problematic and flawed zoning plans, has caused us, the tourism industry, to lose one of our most important cultural and hiking trails. This misguided action has dealt a blow to the country and region, as well as to the value-added economy created by tourism.

Ormana Active tourism travel agency, which provides hotel, restaurant and tourism travel agency services, has been unable to provide service to dozens of partner agencies that organize tours in the region, so the partner agencies have removed the region from their tour programs.

The tourism ecosystem that a family started with a beautiful story and created with the local people over 15 years has been destroyed.

Ormana was given the title of tourism village by the United Nations in 2024, based on a report prepared by our tourism colleague Tolga Özgüven based on the files he had been working on for four years.

After all this effort, Ormana Active's restaurant, which was the driving force of tourism in the region, was controversially closed at the end of 2024 and was recently demolished.

The fact that only one business remains open in the area, while other restaurants and tourism establishments in the area are being closed for the same reasons, citing similar zoning plans, raises significant suspicions among us tourism professionals. While numerous businesses are being closed for the same reason, the fact that only one business remains open without citing zoning plans clearly raises many suspicions.

The streets of Ormana, once bustling with activity, are now empty. Locals and tourism professionals are paying the price for the incompetence of the local government and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

We regretfully predict that Ormana Village will lose its title as a world tourism village after the development assessment report to be prepared by the United Nations in 2025, as the number of tourists visiting the region has almost reached the point of extinction.

We observe that local government and ministry officials, who failed to foresee the decline in regional tourism, are trying to explain to the public that what they are doing is legal and legitimate through gossip and perception mechanisms, instead of working to solve the problem.

The tourism destination created by a family who came from Istanbul and settled in Ormana Village, "the village of those who never forget their birthplace," has been brought to the brink of destruction by the local government and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism .